Escape is Still Her Prison
by BreadQueen42
Summary: What happened to Hermione Granger's parents? Helen Granger's story when she meets the Lestrange couple. For a better summary see my profile page. Please review.


Disclaimer: I own nothing, save the plot. The characters belong to Ms. J. K. Rowling and the poem belongs to Mr. John Keats, technically.

Warning: Though I would like as many people to read this as possible, I feel it only fair to caution you in regard to this story. It is rated M for good reason. This story has no happy ending. There is mention of torture, death, and insanity. If you feel that such mentions won't bother you, feel free to read further. However, if you think that it might bother you, I advise that you cease reading any further.

Escape is Still Her Prison

I awoke slowly and not without great effort. My body wanted to remain unconscious, but as to why it did, I'm still unsure. I had regained the use of all my senses though not fully. There was the most horrible ringing noise in my ears that wouldn't go away. If anything, that horrid noise was getting louder. I could scarcely see. Everything was blurry and overly bright. After this fact had registered somewhere in my mind, hazy and unable to process much, I wondered where I was. A part of me wanted to panic, but the rest of me couldn't be bothered.

In contrast to my sight and hearing, my skin - my sense of touch - was incredibly sensitive. My hands and legs burned as though there was fire underneath my skin. There were short, sharp pinpricking pains throughout the rest of my body and all of me itched. I longed to make the itchy feeling go away, but I could barely move. I felt incredibly weak, boneless even. Apparently, though, my voice worked because I let out a low groan when I attempted to move my burning hand to make the itching go away.

All of the sudden something was moving me and the pain and the itching was excruciating. My entire body was now on fire! Oh God, the agony!!! The flames were spreading, the itching was intense and had increased tenfold. Couldn't somebody, something, anything just take it all away? Kill me! Please, just make it go away! But I couldn't even scream to let anyone know that I needed help, all I could do was moan and whimper. Would somebody please save me from this terrible ordeal?!

Suddenly, without warning, it was gone; the flames, the shooting pinpricks, the itching, it was all gone! I felt… almost normal. I sighed softly in relief and allowed my body to sag against something that seemed to be moving, how very odd. It was moving, but what made the situation so odd was the fact that I seemed to be moving with it. It, or rather he as I had come to realize, was carrying me. No, not carrying per se, but dancing with me though my feet were not touching the ground.

"Are you trying to seduce me?" I managed to gasp out, nearly inaudible. My husband very seldom danced, only when there was a certain something in it for him. That part made sense, the rest of it didn't. Why did he want to do so now, especially when I had just woken and been in so much pain and had no idea why that was so?

I didn't have to wait long for an answer. A low, malevolent sounding chuckle resonated from the man holding me several inches off the ground. That sound didn't come from my husband. It sounded nothing like him. This sound frightened me.

A moment later, I allowed my head to fall backward so that I might see who was holding me despite my limited vision. It had improved just a bit, however. Light was no longer so strong and glaring and I could make out color and fuzzy, non-definable shapes. The man supposedly dancing with me was definitely not my husband. The rather large blob where his head should be located was topped by yet another, much darker, blob that I assumed was his hair. This reaffirmed that this man was not the man I married. Gerry had grayish hair.

"No, my dear, I'm not going to seduce you. I am going to kill you," whispered the man sinisterly. I knew that I should be terrified and hysterical. For some reason, I was not. I was frightened yes, but not any more than I was before he said that. Perhaps this was so because it explained why I awoke feeling the way I did. It was quite possible that this knowledge afforded such a feeling of relief as to render any additional fear that his announcement might have created nonexistent. Yes, quite a plausible explanation indeed.

The man quite suddenly, though gently, set me on my feet and I slumped against his chest. I was still incredibly weak, therefore unable to hold myself up. I would have eventually slipped down to the floor and landed in a graceless heap of flesh, if he hadn't continued to hold me in a nearly upright position. As I waited there, all the while hoping that he would just leave me alone yet knowing that he wouldn't, he pressed a small, cool object into each of my hands. I had no idea what they were, but kept a hold of them in the hopes that I might be able to use whatever they were against him at some point before he killed me. It took a surprising amount of effort to hold onto them.

He picked me up and we were dancing again, spinning around in circles and gradually getting faster. It was making me dizzy so I shut my eyes. It didn't help much. I could still see the whirlwind of colors on the underneath of my eyelids. Speaking of my eyelids, why did they feel so strange?

My eyelids felt rather… tight and crusty. Actually, it wasn't just my eyelids that felt this way. My lips and the skin above my cheekbones felt that way as well, a most peculiar feeling that. What could be making me feel so? The most likely answer was that there was something stuck on those parts of my face, much like when one wakes up with dried saliva stuck to their face. But why would saliva be on my eyelids of all places?

I decided that I wanted - no, needed - to know exactly what it was that seemed to be stuck on my face. However, I didn't know how to do so. I could scarcely move and what little strength I had regained after I awoke and the pain left my body was put into the effort of holding onto the two small objects my captor had given me. I couldn't use my hands, that much was apparent. I needed to find another way to figure it out.

Taste! That was it! I could use my tongue to try to figure out what was on my lips. Of course there was no guarantee that I would be able to identify what it was just by taste alone or that it was the same thing that was on my eyelids and cheekbones, but at least there was a possibility that I could figure the mystery out. After taking a moment to remind myself that I could actually move just so long as I made an effort, I opened my mouth and proceeded to taste my lower lip. I recognized that flavor immediately and wished that I hadn't. For all that I wanted to know - for some reason I was still unsure of - what it was that made portions of my face feel odd, I was in no way prepared to taste that.

It was blood; whether or not it was my blood or another's, I didn't know. But that taste, that horrendous, revolting taste, was enough to make my stomach churn. I could not imagine any other substance on this planet that would be more grotesque and disturbing to find on my lips, and quite possibly other parts of my face. My body desperately wanted to dispel the contents of my stomach, but it was too weak. Instead, a choked sort of retching noise followed by the whispered word of "blood" escaped my mouth.

My captor seemed to notice this because he lifted me up even higher, presumably so he could look into my face. It was difficult for me to know for sure. My vision was still quite poor, though there were more distinctions in shape, depth, and color than before.

"Ah, so you've noticed my addition to your appearance," he said in the most sickeningly sweet tone I had ever heard, yet it was laced with an underlying diabolical malevolence. "Shall I tell you why I've changed your appearance hmm?"

I didn't bother answering and just pretended like I wasn't all that aware of my surroundings. It turned out that he wasn't really looking for a response from me as he continued, "Yes, I believe I shall. It's quite simple. You are my new pet, my life-sized doll, and perhaps something more a little later. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself now. I mustn't do that. It would spoil the surprise."

He continued to dance me around whatever place we were in. How was it possible that my captor wasn't worn out in doing so? No, I mustn't let my thoughts get away from me. If I was to survive this, I would need to pay as much attention and conserve as much strength as I could. I just hoped it would be enough when the time came, if it ever would.

"My dear Helen, may I call you Helen?" he asked. I never answered because he didn't seem to want one. "You are my new prize possession, my porcelain doll. Naturally, I had to make you look the part. You had color in all the wrong places. In order to remedy that, I had to drain some of your blood out. Now you are as pale as snow, just the way my doll should be.

"Helen, my prize, your blood is the loveliest shade of crimson I have ever seen. So lovely in fact, that I decided to use it to properly color you, again as my doll should be. I have also taken the liberty of coloring your fingernails for you. Isn't it wonderful? What say we go take a look at how lovely you are now?" And with that he led me away, all the while dancing, always dancing. Would it ever stop? Probably not.

But it did stop, just for a moment. He brought me to look into what I could only assume was a mirror. "Look at us Helen. Don't we make quite a fine looking pair? Is that what you want, my prize? Would you want to be something more to me?" And then we were away from the mirror, away and dancing, yet again.

This time, he seemed to be heading in a specific direction. I had come to realize earlier that my captor was a very sick and twisted man, but I hadn't grasped the enormity of just how sick and twisted he was until he spoke again. "What a pair you and I shall make, what a pair! Of course, there are some things we need to discuss before that occurs.

"My dear, I must confess that when I first arrived here at your ever so charming abode, my intention was to simply kill you and leave. That changed when I saw you. You radiate beauty and power and such vast potential for greatness. I was, and still am, completely and totally enamored of you.

"Helen, oh Helen," he crooned, "I want you to be mine, my Belle Dame, far more than my prized and my doll. You will be won't you? Yes of course you will, my dear. I apologize, I should not have doubted your answer." I mentally rolled my eyes. My answer would have actually been a resounding no, but I still thought it best to say nothing at all.

"There is one small problem though. I wish that it wasn't necessary, but it is. There is a task that you must complete in order to prove yourself worthy as my Belle Dame. It will be a relatively simple task, nothing too tedious or difficult, I promise you.

"Already I have gifted you with tools you might need to complete your task, the knives in your hands. With these, you are to kill your husband, your doting knight-at-arms. Only then can you become my Belle Dame. If you should fail - and I dearly hope that you do not - in this task, you will die."

His words sent a cold, sharp jolt of pain through my heart. I hadn't realized before then that I had allowed myself to hope just the slightest it that he would leave me be after I had complete some idiotic task. Now, I was without any hope whatsoever. Sick, twisted bastard! That evil, revolting, arse-faced wretch! How dare he! How DARE he!

It took several more minutes for me to register anything through the haze brought on by my sudden, all-encompassing rage and bitter, heartrending anguish. A laugh I instinctively knew could only originate from an incurably mad person, bounced off the walls and bombarded my ears with its cruel malice and dark, sinister amusement. This horrid laugh hurt my already aching ears terribly. The ringing in my ears I awoke with had begun to decrease, much as my vision had improved, but that laugh had aggravated it even more.

Soon after, my captor began to chuckle along with that god-awful noise. I turned my head to see if I could find the source of the insane laughter. It was standing much closer to me than I thought and it appeared to be female. Her head seemed to be moving back and forth looking at me then looking at the ground somewhere between me and her all the while laughing maniacally. I hadn't realized until then that we had stopped dancing, a fact that I was semi grateful about. Despite the awful situation I found myself in, my curiosity got the better of me. I looked down at the floor to where I thought she had been looking.

As a huge surge of adrenaline passed through my body, I pushed myself away from my captor and dropped to the floor. "Gerry? Gerald. Gerald!" I screamed. I frantically searched for a pulse, though I knew that I would find none. That insane laughing bitch must have killed him. I now desperately wanted her dead, more than dead if it were possible.

The demonic duo were laughing even harder now. It made me wonder if they had planned this from the beginning. If this was so, then to what point and purpose? I had done nothing to these people, had never even met them before. Then again, I'm not entirely sure if such things mattered to the insane.

"Oh, my dear, I am so very sorry for your loss." Did the bastard just giggle? He did. Dear God in heaven, the man was positively giddy. "It seems we now have a slight problem. Now that your knight is dead - and not by your hand might I add - you can no longer complete your task.

"Bellatrix," he said while holding out his hands to the woman, "my Bella, my wife, my true Belle Dame sans Merci, you never cease to amaze me. You are so glorious, so beautiful in your cold, brutal ruthlessness." The bitch actually giggled at his words as though she were a teen being paid the most flattering compliment of her life. It was revolting, it was absolutely disgusting!

The bitch's husband began to lead her away into another room. At first it seemed as if they had forgotten about me, which was quite a good thing in my opinion. But that was not to be; he turned back toward me before he walked through the doorway and said, "Oh and Helen, while we're gone, please be a dear and don't try to escape."

Escape. That was neither a word nor a concept I had dared to think about before that moment. With a clarity of mind not possible only minutes before the sudden surge of adrenaline, I knew what I had to do. I needed to escape, not only for myself, but for the sake of my poor child. It was too late for my husband. That fact greatly saddened me, but I pushed away my grief for another time. I had an escape to make. I had to get out of there.

As quickly as I could, I weighed all my options. It appeared that the best way to escape was through a nearby window. I got up and moved toward it as quickly and quietly as I could, all the while praying that I would make it out before my tormentors came back and my legs gave out.

I finally made it to the window, grateful that I hadn't yet been discovered. I promptly opened it; I don't know what I would have done if it had refused to budge. When it was open as far and wide as it would go, I began to climb through. I swung one leg up and wedged my foot in a corner of the windowsill and placed all my weight on that foot. Using my hands to steady myself, I brought my other leg up and perched on the sill, looking out to where I hoped to escape.

Within seconds, I leapt out the window and instantly reveled in my newfound elation. I had escaped.

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Sometime after Helen Granger's escape through the window and the Dark Mark had been cast by Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange, Aurors arrived on the scene to investigate. They expected to find death and destruction. And they did, but it was not the only thing they found.

Upon entering one room in particular, a pair of the Auror squad froze at the sight before them. Neither had been prepared for that horrific scene. On each wall, written several times in blood, were the words:

_And this is why I sojourn here,_

_Alone and palely loitering,_

_Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,_

_And no birds sing._

It was quite obvious that he blood came from the body of a man in the center of the room. His limbs were twisted at odd angles with bones jutting out, nose, hands and feet severed completely and missing from the room, and a grotesque, gaping hole where his heart should have been. It was from this hole that the blood had come, a crude pot of ink.

That sight alone disturbed the pair, but they had been privy to scenes more horrific and nightmare inducing. What had really turned their stomachs, however, was the woman kneeling beside the body writing on the ground with blood drenched fingers, muttering to herself.

As they looked on, she stopped writing and dipped her fingers in the pool of blood residing in the corpse's chest. This startled them into action and one of them quickly knocked her out with a nonverbal stupefy and the other bound her. As soon as this was accomplished, one of them went to retrieve the rest of the Auror squad.

The more senior of the two, wand at the ready, cautiously walked over toward the now unconscious, twitching woman beside the mutilated corpse in an attempt to determine their respective identities. When he finally stood next to them, he happened to also read what the woman wrote. It was different from what had been written on the walls, but just as puzzling.

_And there she lulled me asleep,_

_And there I dream'd - Ah! woe betide!_

_The latest dream I ever dream'd_

_On the cold hill's side._

_I saw pale kings and princes too,_

_Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;_

_They cried - "La Belle Dame sans Merci_

_Hath thee in thrall!"_

_A/N: Hello readers! I hoped it wasn't too disturbing for anyone. This is, for anyone who does not already know, an offshoot from my rendition of Flowers and Warriors. As you have probably read by now, it explained, a bit, about what happened to Hermione Granger's parents in regard to the aforementioned story. The bits of poem are taken from John Keats "La Belle Dame sans Merci." _

_I also hope that it was apparent that Helen Granger's escape was that of her sanity as she was being tortured after she had been caught at the window. If it wasn't that apparent, I apologize, but I could think of no other way to write this the way I had originally saw it. Also, I would greatly appreciate reviews, however, courtesy is appreciated even more. Thank you for reading. Ta._


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